Chapter 6

I sat still, looking at him in disbelief. My whole life had been turned up- side down in a matter of hours. 'I want to go back to Wales. Please, let me go home.' Chris got up from the sofa again and walked over to the fireplace.

The dying fire bathed the room in a warm half-light. He propped one hand on the wall and said something in Italian.

With a deep sigh, he turned to me again and replied, 'Unfortunately, that won't be possible during the next sixty days. I want you to sacrifice sixty days for me. I will do everything in my power to make you fall in love with me. If I fail after the next 60 days, I will set you free. Don't misunderstand me, this is not a proposal. I'm telling you what is going to happen. I will not touch you or do anything you don't want. I will not make you do anything against your will. I will not rape you, if that's what you're afraid of. Because you're my love. I want to give you all the love in the world. Your value to me is as high as my own life. Everything in my residence will be at your disposal. You will get your own bodyguards, but not because I want to control you. It's only for your own safety. You will pick the men yourself. You will be able to access all my property. I will not keep you locked up. If it is your wish to leave the house and go to a club or wherever else, I have nothing against it—'

I interrupted him. 'You're not being serious, are you? You think I'll just sit here like nothing ever happened? What will my parents think? You don't know my mother. She'll cry her eyes out when she learns I've been abducted. She'll spend the rest of her life looking for me. Do you know what this will do to her? I'd rather you shot me right here and now than make me blame myself for my mother's pain. If you let me out of this room, I'll run away, and you'll never see me again. I will not be your property. Not yours, not anyone else's.'

Chris closed the distance between us, as if he knew something unpleasant was going to happen again. He reached out, passing me the other envelope. Holding it in my hands, I wondered if I should rip it open like I had done the first one. I studied Chris's face closely. He was watching the fire, waiting for my reaction to what was inside the envelope.

I ripped it open and pulled out an-other set of photos, my hands shaking. What the fuck? Those were photos of my family: Mum and Dad. 'What is this supposed to mean?' I asked, disoriented and pissed to the brink of completely losing it.

'This is my insurance policy. You will not risk the life and safety of your family, will you? I know where they live, what they do, where they work, when they go to sleep and what they eat for breakfast. I will not keep an eye on you the entire time. I know I won't be able to keep you in place when I'm out. I won't keep you under lock and key, either. The only thing I can do is to give you an ultimatum: you give me sixty days and your family will be safe and sound.' I sat rooted to the spot and wondered if I could kill him.

There was a gun lying on the table between us and I was ready to do what it took to protect my family.

I sprang up and snatched the firearm, aiming it at the man. He remained in place, calm and impassive, but his eyes were ablaze with anger. 'You're driving me crazy, Maria'. Please, put the gun down or the situation might get out of control and I may be forced to hurt you.' As soon as he finished, I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Chris pounced on me, wrested the gun from my hand, and jerked me off the armchair, flinging me to the sofa he had jumped off of a second ago. He rolled me to my stomach and bound my hands with a decorative rope attached to one of the pillows. Then he sat me up, or rather threw me against the soft seat. 'You have to flick off the safety first! You want to kill me? Think it's so easy? As if nobody tried before you…'

He trailed off, brushed his hair with a hand, sighed, and threw me a cold and furious glare. 'Rico!' he called out. The young Italian immediately appeared at the door.

He must have been waiting on the other side, ready to enter at any time. 'Take Maria to her room but keep the door unlocked,' he said in English with that Italian accent of his. He wanted me to understand.

Having done that, he turned to me and said, 'I will not keep you here against your will, but will you risk escaping?' He lifted me by the rope and passed it to Rico, who accepted the thing with utter impassivity.

Chris tucked his gun behind his belt and left the room, shooting me a last warning glance as he did so. The young Italian gestured to the door and led me by the 'leash' Chris had bound me with. After walking the same labyrinth of corridors, we reached the room where I had woken up a few hours ago.

Rico untied my hands, nodded, and closed the door as he left. I waited a couple of minutes and grabbed the handle. The door wasn't locked. I wasn't sure if I wanted to cross the threshold. I sat down on the bed, thoughts spinning in my head. Was he telling the truth?

Was he being serious? The entire year without my friends? Without my family? Without Wales? I broke out crying. Would he be able to do something that cruel to my family? I wasn't sure, but I didn't want to test him.

A wave of tears flooded from my eyes. I don't know how long I spent crying, but finally, exhausted, I fell asleep.

I woke up curled into a ball, still wearing the fluffy white bathrobe. It was dark outside. I wasn't sure if it was the same horrible night, or maybe the next one. I heard hushed male voices from the garden, so I went to the balcony. I couldn't see anyone.

The sounds were too quiet for the men to be anywhere close by. Something is happening at the other side of the property, I thought. Reluctantly, I grabbed the door handle to check if I was free to go. The door was open, and I crossed the threshold, only to spend a long while thinking whether to continue or retreat back into the room.

My curiosity won that struggle and I headed down a long hallway, in the direction of the voices. It was a hot and breezy August night.

The drapes in the windows fluttered in the breeze that smelled of the sea. The house was dark and calm. I wondered how it looked by day. Without Rico, I couldn't find my way through the tangled corridors. In just a short while, I was hopelessly lost. The only thing I navigated by were the voices. They were growing louder with each step I took. Passing through a half-open door, I found myself in an enormous hall with gigantic windows overlooking the driveway. I approached the pane of glass and leaned against the thick, tall frame, trying to hide behind it.

In the dark, I could see Chris and several other people. There was a man kneeling before them shouting something in Italian. His expression suggested panic as he stared wide-eyed at the Man in Black. Chris was standing at ease, his hands in the pockets of his casual pants. He was fixing the pleading man with an icy stare, waiting for him to finish.

As soon as he did, Chris impassively uttered a short sentence or two, took out his gun, and shot the man in the head. The victim's body flopped to the stone driveway. I yelped and put my hands to my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

It was no use. Chris heard me, turned away from the body, and looked straight at me. His stare was cold and emotionless, as if killing a man was nothing to him. He grabbed the silencer of his gun and passed the weapon to one of the men standing next to him. I slumped to the floor. I couldn't breathe. I gasped for air.

My heart was thumping, but it's rhythm was quickly slowing and so was the pumping of blood in my head. I saw darkness and my stomach cramped, signaling the inevitable release of the champagne I had drunk earlier. With trembling hands, I tried untying the belt of the bathrobe that seemed to constrict me so tightly I could barely breathe. I had witnessed the death of a human being. In my head, I could see the scene of the execution replaying over and over again.

The image made me choke, my lungs completely void of air. I let it go, succumbed to the feeling, stopped fighting. During the last moments of consciousness, I felt the belt of the bathrobe loosening and someone's fingers touching my neck, searching for a pulse. One hand slid under my back and went up, passing my neck and holding my head. Another sup- ported my legs. I felt movement.

I wanted to open my eyes but couldn't lift my eyelids. There were sounds around me, but only one clear enough to hear, 'Breathe Maria.' That accent. I knew it was Chris with his arms around me. The arms of a man who had killed just a moment before. He took me to my room, kicking the door open. I felt him laying me down on the bed. I was still struggling to breathe.

My heaving breath was getting less chaotic and panicked, but I still couldn't inhale deeply. There was still too little oxygen. Chris opened my mouth with one hand and slid a pill under my tongue.

'Don't be afraid, darling girl. It's heart medicine. The doctor left it in case of such a situation.' A while later my breathing went back to normal. Oxygen finally got into my lungs and my heart steadied its rhythm. I sank into the sheets and fell into a deep sleep.